Throughout the centuries, footwear has evolved from fulfilling only the functional purpose of protecting feet to a significant fashion factor in a person's wardrobe. People, women in particular, often consider shoes an essential element in complementing their appearance. Shoe styles and footwear fashions have changed over the years, sometimes as often as seasonally. However, fashionable footwear for women almost always includes the high-heeled shoe.
Despite the stylish appeal of high-heeled shoes, they are not without disadvantages. In a flat shoe, the foot is supported in a substantially horizontal orientation. This horizontal orientation allows the wearer's own weight to be uniformly distributed over substantially the entire sole of the foot, thereby increasing stability and comfort. In contrast, high-heeled footwear elevates the heel portion of a person's foot relative to the rest of the foot. Instead of the foot being horizontally oriented and securely supported in the shoe, the foot is supported on an angle and usually is less stable. The angle at which the foot is supported relative to the ground is due to the angled or sloped contour of the shoe. As a result of this angular orientation of a wearer's foot, her body weight is thrust forward toward her toes or the balls of her feet. This angled orientation is known to cause arthritics and other pathological changes in the foot. These changes include equinas, hammer toes, bunions, jamming of toe joints, soft corns, callouses, tailor's bunions, neuromas and other nerve compression syndromes.
In addition, many people suffer from foot deformities, either naturally occurring or as a result of other circumstances such as surgery. Foot deformities may make wearing a high fashion (high-heeled) shoe extremely uncomfortable, if not painful or even impossible. Persons suffering from foot problems have often been restricted to orthopedic footwear in which the actual supporting portion of the shoe is generally flat or horizontally oriented.
Some foot problems may be tempered by orthotic devices, such as inserts or arch supports, which may be inserted into a wearer's shoes. Orthotic devices may be either prescribed by a doctor or purchased over the counter. While such devices may fit into a conventional flat shoe, they may not be compatible with the contour of a high-heeled shoe. The device may "rock" when placed in a high-heeled shoe, or other problems may develop causing the device to, at the very least, lose its effectiveness in correcting the foot problem.
Furthermore, even simple every day walking may be painful due to the lack of shock absorption in most high fashion shoes. Without the inclusion of a shock absorbing material in a shoe, a wearer is constantly pounding her joints against the walking surface. Although running shoes have been developed to absorb shock, most high-heeled shoes are not designed for this purpose. For this reason, women have turned to wearing jogging shoes with business suits and other high fashion attire, for instance, while traveling to and from their workplaces.
Still further, many high-heeled shoes have pointed, rather than round, toe areas and low toe boxes (i.e. the height of the part of the shoe covering a wearer's toes). Such geometry does not conform with the anatomy of the foot and may cause foot pathology from compression. Common conditions include neuromas, ingrown toenails and soft corns.
These and other characteristics of high fashion shoes have forced people with foot problems to confine themselves to flat footwear. Additionally, women without physical restrictions due to foot problems, may avoid high-heeled shoes to prevent the problems these shoes are known to cause. Furthermore, even women without medical concerns, may, for personal reasons, sacrifice the fashion of a high-heeled shoe for the comfort and secure support of flat footwear.
In the past various attempts have been made to improve support and comfort characteristics of footwear. Some of these attempts have included the provision of supports, cushions, and modified toe boxes. Other attempts have included specially designing portions of the shoe. However, despite these attempts, a continued need remains for high fashion footwear providing improved support and comfort.